2014-10-14 - How Doomed Are You? An Online Survey
Bristol - Gotham City The night has fallen in Gotham. Not an abnormal thing; Gotham City seems to be in perpetual twilight much of the time. The high buildings block out most of the light unless it's high noon anyway. Tonight the sirens are active, the night is waking up with the usual round of robberies and muggings, though nothing serious. A small explosion rocks the Waynetech laboratory that is located in this district; a window on the ground floor being blown out, along with part of the pavement. Wait, not out. It's been blown IN, the explosion was focused inward. Spectators later swear that they saw a bolt of light come down from the sky and strike the building with spectacular results! Kara Zor-El was sitting outside WayneTech. She was supposed to be waiting to meet up with Dick to tell her about this encounter she had earlier with these criminals who had gotten their hand on some red kryptonite and used it on her. Nothing really seemed to happen. And she really should have just flown over to him or Batman or the other Titans to let them know, but... you know.... that seemed like a whole lot of work. She looked up at the explosion from the bench she was sitting on, in her Supergirl outfit, and shrugged a bit to herself, going back to playing Flappy Fish on her smartphone. Yep, that red kryptonite didn't affect her one little bit. Nope. "Stupid fish." she says, shutting the game off and checking her email instead. A day spent excerpting isn't a day wasted for Jason, he's mid jog back to the train so he can get headed to New York when the explosion happens, and he's not exactly happy about it. "I'm supposed to be retired" He calls out to no one in particular, before just running off towards the sound of the explosion. This city is going to be the death of him, at least once. On the vanguard of the Gotham crew, a figure in black (no surprise) drifts down out of the sky surveying the explosion site. Alighting upon a gargoyle, she settles just in time to see a figure fall from the sky, clad in green. A cloaked figure, landing on two metalling-sounding feet in the middle of the mess is easily visible to Kara, a little harder for Jason to see, but still recognizable. Doctor Doom has come to Gotham. Kara Zor-El looks around again in annoyance at the sounds of explosions. She then looks up at the cloaked figure. "Finally. So annoying with all the explosions." And goes right back to reading her emails. "Oooh. Online survey. Free cat treats if you qualify. Streaky'll love this." Jason's running at about as fast a speed as his legs can carry, so it's no surprise that he doesn't quite notice Dr.Doom at first, but when he does he stops dead in his tracks. This is not good, in fact this is very bad, and he needs to do something about it retired or not. He reaches down into his pockets, pulling out a small revolver with a rather large barrel, and takes aim for the man. If a taser round doesn't do it, he might have to try, and probably fail to go hand to hand. Black Bat in full leather facemask and black stitched gear climbs down a drainpipe, headfirst. She prowls her way to the ground, staying low on her hands and toes, having gotten a good view of the scene. She lets her eyes pass over Kara, a slight frown passing over the features under her full face mask before circling around Doom. She heads in Kara's direction, to investigate her and see if she's alright. She seems to be acting odd; the guy in armor can wait for later. Doom begins to stride into the hole he allegedly created in the building when his head turns, eyes lighting up as he takes in the people in the area. Standing in the rubble, he speaks with his well-known voice. "Latveria claims this building. Do not interfere in things beyond your ken." Raising his chin just slightly, he turns to continue into the building. Kara Zor-El looks over at Black Bat and smiles. "Hey. Could you do something about this... thing here? There's some robot guy there. Looks like a titanium alloy. Pretty advanced. Whatever." She shrugs a bit, then shows Black Bat her phone. "Oh. I just got on this awesome website, where if I get 20 of my friends to join it, they say I'll get a free ipad." She pauses. "Think that's anything like a StarkPad? Do you have an email address?" She pauses. "Look who I'm asking." then shakes her head. "It's okay, I'll make an email address for you." Then goes back to paying attention to her phone instead of the crime happening -right in front of her.- Having sighted in his target, Jason takes the shot. He's trying to hit a spot that doesn't have as much armor but it's no easy task, even with several life times of experience backing him. The pistol kicks back into the air, sending a single taser round, getting forced back into position for two more to fallow behind. He didn't get the presidents 100 for nothing. He just has to hope this metal man has a weakness to electricity. Head turned away, Jason has no trouble hitting the Doom Bot. Even in a more unguarded location, though tazers don't tend to fly with great accuracy he manages to make it count. Possibly more than intended, as the bot pauses visibly and sparks occur in the vicinity of its eyes. A twitch happens that starts in its feet and travels up the body and out the fingers. It really was a very good shot, right in the previously damaged underarm. Black Bat looks at Kara, listening to what she says, and frowns a little more. She looks Kara over and makes a judgement call. "Get...down," she says, then moves toward Jason to see what he's doing while keeping an ear on Kara. She doesn't move to engage the Doom Bot at all, instead circling and staying at range. Kara Zor-El shrugs a bit as she looks at her smartphone. "Looks like someone doesn't want to help a friend get a free ipad." She starts filling out the questionaire. "Why yes, I am the head of my household. Click yes here..." She taps on the phone idly, ignoring the fight that Jason is having with the Doombot as Black Bat moves off a bit to gauge what's happening with the bot as well. Well he's sparking, Jason doesn't quite know what to make of it. It doesn't seem human, but then again a lot of things don't seem human. He hasn't really had to deal with that many robots in the past but now's as good a time as any. He pulls a few rounds from the pockets of his jacket, loading them in to replace the ones fired. In this short stint of time he does happen to have enough time to notice Kara and give her the sort of look that says a lot more then words really can. Black Bat moves up past Jason, making certain that the man sees her in passing. Fully shrouded from head to toe in leather with not even her eyes visible, she is unrecognizeable except as possibly one of the cowled heroes of this city as she moves up on Doom. Carefully, staying as low as possible, she sets herself for a leap. Crouches and prepares, then launches herself at the bot with a flying kick! The Doom bot, now revealed as not the real thing, seems to shake off the tazer round. Whether that is actually what he/it is doing with the shaking movement is unknown, as it seems to have developed a spontaneous twitch as it begins walking back into the hole it was originally targeting, then turns suddenly and walks back out again. Which is when Black Bat flies past with her kick completely missing the mark and impacting with the wall. Her foot gets stuck IN the wall, lodged in concrete that she pulverizes, and the onlookers can hear her curse in the ensuing dust. Kara Zor-El thinks a bit as she types in something, then flies over to the battle between Jason and Cassandra and the Doombot. She lands by Black Bat and asks, "I put in my information on this website, and it just sent me to another website about free IHOP pancakes." She tries to show it to Black Bat, as her foot is stuck in the wall... pretty oblivious to the idea that the fight is probably something dangerous to the others here. Jason can hardly believe what he's seeing in more ways then one, but he's got to get this thing under control before it can hurt anyone. Well before it can hurt anyone more, because some might have been hurt in the blast for all he knows. He takes aim yet again, now making sure to bring out the more dangerous rounds, though with how it reacted he might have been better off with the tazer rounds. An arm on the bot raises, aiming at Jason from where it stands. The fingers raise and the palm of the arm is exposed, showing a silver dollar sized circle which begins to glow as it takes aim at Jason. Not for very long though as the weapon fires in his direction with a blast equal to the one which took out the wall of the building! Seeing Kara come over to her, Black Bat slams her fist into the wall until she can get her leg free and says, "You could....help," sounding fairly exasperated. When she sees the bot aim at Jason she hesitates, not sure what to do? She looks at him, then at it, and hesitates with indecision. Kara Zor-El looks at the action with Jason and the DoomBot, then at Cassandra. She makes a wishy washy sort of look on her face. "Yeaaaah I guess. But ... you guys look like you're handling it fine. You and... whatshisname with the taser." She pauses. "Plus I have this whole survey thing to do..." She points to her phone. "I mean... I like IHOP. They make these pancakes called silver dollar pancakes, and during this time of year, they have pumpkin spice on them too." She leans against the wall while Cassandra breaks free of the wall. "I wonder how they turn pumpkins into pumpkin spice. Oooh, I can google it. Have you tried this Google thing? It's amazing." Then starts tapping on her phone again, again, not really paying much mind to the whole 'DoomBot trying to kill people' thing. Instead of jumping, or dodging out of the way Jason calmly fires off a few more rounds from his revolver aimed right for that weak spot. They travel through the air, two high explosive rounds and another tazer round, passing by the rather powerful round fired off by the robot, which hits Jason square in the chest. Needless to say there's not much of Jason left after that, a clean hole right through him that causes him to fall over. As luck would have it he doesn't get nearly as much damage done as the poor wall of the building behind him. Kara Zor-El pauses and looks up from her phone as Jason gets blasted in the chest. Okay, that's it. She better help now! Kara calmly calls over to Cassandra as she's fighting, "Don't do what he did. You should probably dodge that sort of stuff." Then goes back to tapping on her phone for the online survey. Good girl Kara, that's helping. Watching Jason get shot, Black Bat watches him die. She clutches at her own chest, eyes bulging under her mask, and she turns her eyes to stare at Kara when the girl speaks about self-defense. Setting her teeth, she reaches up and swats the ever so helpful Kara across the cheek with her palm. "Wait...here," she says, then turns away from Kara and stalks straight at the Doom Bot with death in her eyes. The bot, seeing the lack of threat that Black Bat has posed thus far, turns away from her and starts toward the hole again. Then when she gets closer, activates and lifts the arm, firing in Black Bat's direction, right at her head. Without bothering to look, it seems to work on sound. Cassandra stands as still as possible, shaking with terror and the shoulder of her outfit seared off as the shot managed to just ever so barely miss her. It instead passed over her shoulder as she made a desperate attempt to dodge when it fired, blasting right at the person she was so careful to keep right in direct line behind her. Kara. Specifically, Kara's Celphone. The shots fired from Jason's sacrificial moment impact with the arm of the Doom Bot, penetrating the core of the arm. Well placed shots, steadied by his lack of movement, they tear the weapon's body and render the arm useless. Or at least, the gun inside. The Bot looks at the arm, then raises the other arm, but lowers it when Jason falls to the earth, judging him to be no longer a viable threat. Kara barely bothers to comment about getting slapped ineffectually in the face. "Quiddit." she murmurs whiningly out of annoyance, not pain, as she continues to tap in her information. Suddenly there's a bright light as the blast fires at Black Bat, missing her and hitting Supergirl. Of course, it doesnt do so much as scratch the Girl of Steel. The smartphone's another matter. Now, Kara might have been able to deal with the phone getting blasted. Hell, she built the phone from scratch - she can make another one. But that survey took her almost 2 minutes of annoying questions! And she was ALMOST DONE! TWO MINUTES. WASTED! Kara frowns, looking up at where the blast came from. Then there's a blur and she's gone. Until a fist goes through the Doombot from behind. Straight through. Then another one. Right before a ticked off Supergirl rips the Doombot in half. She drops the two halves of the DoomBot and sighs. "Did you see what it did?" she says as she trudges over to Cassandra. "My phoooooone." she whines a bit as she walks over Jason's corpse. It's been a long time since Jason's last regeneration, but at least this is something that's worth the regeneration. Part of him had simply thought that he'd have died of food poisoning, or maybe liver failure, but getting blown in half is a pretty good way to go. That's the last thing he can think before everything goes black, the already cauterized wound starting to bleed. Cassandra Cain drops to her knees, looking up at Supergirl as she tenses her hands into fists, the leather of her gloves creaking painfully. She looks over at Jason, registering the thoughts going through his head as he falls, and feels a bit of surprise as that manages to get through her adrenaline filled head. That wasn't the same as the last time. She turns back to Kara, slumping, and gets her feet back under her. She considers burying the body as she gets up, putting a hand on Kara's shoulder. Not a word out of her mouth, as she tries to figure out what she could possibly say to this situation. Awkward as it is, it's still a normal day in Gotham. More's the pity. Kara Zor-El seems quite distraught about that wasted 2 minutes of tapping in her information for the free IHOP pancakes. "Do you think maybe they'll have the information still on the servers or something? Maybe Oracle can do some... computer thingamajigs on it so I can get my free pancakes without having to input all that information again?" she asks Black Bat earnestly. "Oh don't worry about the body, I'm sure that the coroner will send someone. Now about my survey thing..." Cassandra Cain looks back at the body. She shudders, then starts to walk away from it. She'd run, but she doesn't think her legs would hold her right now. "I'll...just....buy, ok?" she suggests to Kara, tearing her mask from her face and leaving the body for the coroners. And the doom bot for Batman. She'll find the money somewhere. Kara Zor-El walks off with Cassandra. "It would taste better if free. You don't think maybe if I explain to the IHOP people what happened?...." she chatters on as the two superheroines walk off...